Now. Here. This. - Time Out London » chocolatehttp://now-here-this.timeout.com
The ultimate guide to what’s on in London right now. This is the place to find the latest information on London events, shows, and exhibitions. Plus the best places in London to places to eat, drink, dance and more. Stay up to date with what’s on in London with Now.Here.This.Fri, 24 Jul 2015 16:19:36 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.9Now. Here. This. - Time Out Londonhttp://blog.anika.d//wp-content/plugins/to-feedme/images/now-here-this.pnghttp://now-here-this.timeout.com
7575The ultimate guide to what’s on in London right now. This is the place to find the latest information on London events, shows, and exhibitions. Plus the best places in London to places to eat, drink, dance and more. Stay up to date with what’s on in London with Now.Here.This.A chocolate selfie and more alternative Easter treatshttp://now-here-this.timeout.com/2015/04/02/a-chocolate-selfie-and-more-alternative-easter-treats/
http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2015/04/02/a-chocolate-selfie-and-more-alternative-easter-treats/#commentsThu, 02 Apr 2015 11:00:56 +0000http://now-here-this.timeout.com/?p=198698

Our favourite cocoa-themed holiday is almost here and while you’ve probably got a PJ date with a huge stack of chocolate eggs planned, perhaps we can tempt you to do something a little different this year? Eggs hunts, bunnies and chicks are all well and good, but choco selfies, fancy scotch eggs and chocolate cocktails are where it’s at in London this weekend. Here’s some alternative eats and events for your delectation.

Bompas & Parr – purveyors of all things extravagantly edible – bring you the first ever selfie Easter egg. Your likeness, or that of your loved one, or even your dog – hey, why not chocolate-cast your entire clan if you’ve got the cash? – will be created by the latest facial-scanning and 3D printing technology. You even get to keep the cast so you can make as many chocolate replicas of yourself as you want. Find out more by phoning +44 (0)20 7403 9403 or emailinfo@bompasandparr.com.

A chocolate Benedict Cumberbatch is coming to Westfield Stratford

Every strapping inch of Benedict Cumberbatch has been recreated in chocolate – 40kgs of it to be exact. The hand-carved likeness may even top your B&P choco selfie for realism, but unlike your face egg, you can’t eat Chocobatch. Sorry Cumberbitches – he’s a look but don’t touch chocoman. But if you’d still like to swoon over a lifesize version of the ’Sherlock’ actor or just marvel at 250 hours worth of chocolatiering, he’ll be on show at Westfield Stratford City on Good Friday to honour the launch of Drama on UKTV’s on demand service.

Because everything tastes better between two halves of a brioche bun, Studio Kitchen bring you the Creme Egg burger. It’s four layers of indulgence made up of a melty Creme Egg, mascarpone cream and strawberry jelly, all squeezed between a sweet bun topped in white chocolate and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. Sample the sliders at Studio Kitchen, K West Hotel & Spa in Shepherds Bush as a dessert or as part of the Spring Rocks Afternoon Tea.

Any good national holiday should have its own signature drink, and cocktail connoisseurs Bourne & Hollingsworth might have nailed it with the Hot Cross Rum. It’s dark rum and hot cross bun syrup, shaken with an egg and topped with a dusting of cinnamon. It’s available as part of their brunch menu over the Easter weekend. Chin chin! Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings, 42 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell.

Going all out for wordplay, South African Street Food favourite Bunny Chow are bringing you the ‘Hot Cross Bunny’ this bank holiday weekend. Its take on the hot cross bun is a calorific hollowed out raisin-soaked bun with orange rind. Take your pick of raspberry jam or a warm chocolate filling, both served with a hearty dollop of clotted cream. Hoppy Easter! Bunny Chow, 74 Wardour Street, Soho, W1F 0TE.

Upping the ante on your loo experience this Easter weekend is Mayfair’s Sketch. Geese decoys will adorn their iconic egg loos and the roof light over the East Bar will become a 3 metre-wide nest as part of an installation from design studio Mark Lawson Bell. There’s also an Easter egg hunt on Easter Sunday for little ones. Sketch, 9 Conduit Street, Soho.

When your sweet tooth has taken enough of a battering for one bank holiday weekend, head to House of Ho, which is serving up the gourmet scotch egg to end all gourmet scotch eggs. Bobby Chinn’s Vietnamese take on the classic bar snack throws minced pork, cellophane noodles, fish sauce and five Asian spices into the scramble of ingredients. The egg is coated in a crispy fried shell of flour, egg and Japanese panku breadcrumbs and served on a bed of cellophane noodles. Sounds banging. Available from March 30 – April 6 for £5. House of Ho, 55-59 Old Compton Street, Soho.

Chocolate and alcohol are two of the most frequently foregone pleasures during the self-imposed Sahara of self-denial that is Lent. But with Easter on the horizon, things are looking up. And if you’re preparing to embrace your vices once more, you might as well do it in style with a five-course dessert-only menu, focused around chocolate and matched with plenty of booze.

The meal in question is the first in a month-long residency at Pond Dalston called A Month of Sundaes, taking place on Easter Sunday (April 5). Chocolatier and pastry chef Fraise Sauvage will rustle up an original menu that’s part trashy sugar-rush, part-sophisticated soirée (£40), with optional wine, cocktails and champagne pairings to boot (£55).

And the second word is ‘chocolate’, on show at the Chocolate Festival that same weekend. Exhibitors include über-chocolatier Damian Allsop, and attractions include chocolate-making workshops which promise (messy, we hope) hands-on experience. This too is at the Business Design Centre, and a single £9 ticket (£12 on the door) buys entry to both events.

Needless to say, the third C-word here is ‘calories’. But calories in a pair of very good causes.

There’s a reason you won’t find Dairy Milks and Double Deckers behind the bar at your local pub – salty, meaty things make a much more natural companion to frothy, beery things. Simple food science.

That doesn’t mean suds and chocs can’t coexist at all, though – a point East Dulwich craft beer shop Hop Burns & Black is keen to prove with its upcoming beer and chocolate pairing event. And they might be on to something.

For starters, the chocs aren’t your average, mass-produced rubbish, but high-cocoa bars from Melange on Peckham’s Bellenden Road, in varieties as bonkers as raspberry and rosemary or cumin and mint. The beers, meanwhile, have been specially chosen from HB&B’s well-stacked shelves and fridges, which house brews from the unlikeliest corners of the world (along with plenty of the best new and classic London-made drops, naturally).

Tickets for the event cost £20 and are very limited indeed, so get your name down now for an alternative pre-Easter sugar fix. You may never order another pack of dry roasted again.

If the idea of chocolate-tasting sessions has you salivating – you’re in luck. There are two big events this year: The Chocolate Show taking place from Oct 17-19 at Olympia West and The Chocolate Festival from Dec 12-14 at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

This weekend at the October show, catch Ed Kimber (winner of the first ever series of Great British Bake Off) and pastry chefs from The Berkeley hotel and Café Royal doing demonstrations at Olympia. At the December show, you can taste chocolate couture collections from the kind of world class chocolatiers whose work fills classy Christmas stockings and pricey choc boxes – we’re talking Paul A Young, Rococo, and Ameila Rope.

For us mere mortals, more used to scoffing down a humble bar of Dairy Milk, it’s a great opportunity to splash the cash on posh chocs and indulge in a bit of frivolity. Wacky attractions at the December show include cocoa butter beauty treatments (though sadly no bathtubs filled with liquid chocolate). And if you can’t wait until December, this week’s event at Olympia includes a chocolate catwalk fashion show. We can just see the tabloid headlines now – ‘Choc Frock Shock Horror’.

]]>http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/10/16/chocs-away-indulge-your-sweet-side-at-the-chocolate-show/feed/0Ciao, Roma: A Rome-themed House of Peroni is back in Octoberhttp://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/09/22/ciao-roma-a-rome-themed-house-of-peroni-is-back-in-october/
http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/09/22/ciao-roma-a-rome-themed-house-of-peroni-is-back-in-october/#commentsMon, 22 Sep 2014 11:00:20 +0000http://now-here-this.timeout.com/?p=164892

On Friday October 3, the House of Peroni is bringing four floors of Italian food, culture and music back to Holborn – and this time the month-long event’s dedicated to Rome. Yup, the city that brought latin, Sofia Loren and spaghetti carbonara to the world is coming to London ­­– here are five things to look forward to at the HoP.

The setting

In tribute to Rome, the place that inspired the creation of Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the House of Peroni – a grand four-floor pad in Holborn – will be home to specially commissioned artworks by Italian artists, architects and designers, including digital murals and recreations of the ancient facades of Roman buildings. You’ll also be able to chill in the Orange Gardens, a leafy installation inspired by Rome’s green spaces.

The food

No self-respecting Roman scrimps on the food – God forbid. The House of Peroni is no exception: in the fourth floor restaurant, House chefs from Wapping restaurant Bottega will be serving up traditional fare like pasta amatriciana, slow-roasted rabbit, and crusted lamb. You’ll also be able to wander round street food stalls at Mercato Romano, serving trad-with-a-twist dishes and showcasing new Italian food trends. Why not wear maternity pants, a la Joey Tribbiani, for this bit?

The drink

The House’s three bars will keep you watered (or, more accurately, beered) ­– with Peroni Nastro Azzurro cocktails featuring ingredients like visciole ­­– small, sour cherries native to the area around Rome. If you like your liquids a bit warmer and a lot more caffeinated, get yourself a piping hot espresso at Roman coffee bar Il Caffè.

The Film Feast

This year, the House will be screening Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning flick ‘The Great Beauty’. To accompany the event, Bottega Wapping have created a special themed menu to complement the film and make it a ‘multisensory experience’.

The masterclasses

There’ll be loads of hands-on activities in the House ­­– with classes in anything from fashion design (make your own Italian bow-tie with tailors Diderot, Thursdays October 16 and 30, £45) to chocolate-making with artisan choccy-makers SAID (Saturdays October 4 and 11, £25). You’ll even be able to make your own floral headdress with a ‘Roman Royalty’ masterclass (Thursdays October 9 and 23, £35) – before swanning around like Julius Caesar for the rest of the evening, should you so desire.

House of Peroni, 64 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2A 3JX. For more information and to book a masterclass or a table in the restaurant see thehouseofperoni.com. Fri Oct 3 until Oct 31. Mon-Sat, noon-midnight. Free entry.

]]>http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/09/22/ciao-roma-a-rome-themed-house-of-peroni-is-back-in-october/feed/0Holey hell! It’s the world’s most expensive doughnuthttp://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/05/21/holey-hell-its-the-worlds-most-expensive-doughnut/
http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/05/21/holey-hell-its-the-worlds-most-expensive-doughnut/#commentsWed, 21 May 2014 13:30:09 +0000http://now-here-this.timeout.com/?p=143958Behold the most ridiculously extravagant doughnut in the world. To celebrate National Doughnut Week (May 10-17) and help raise money for The Children’s Trust, Selfridges and Krispy Kreme teamed up to create this pricey piece of confectionery, which is worth – wait for it – £1,000, Wondering why it costs so much dough? That’s because it’s got a 23-carat-gold-dusted white chocolate lotus flower on the top, 24-carat gold leaf, Dom Pérignon vintage 2002 champagne jelly and a raspberry and Chateau d’Yquem crème. Oh, and there are a few ‘edible diamonds’ sprinkled around, too. Because apparently they exist. If that’s not excessive enough for you, you should know that the price tag also includes a decadent cocktail made with 50-year-old Courvoisier and 2002 Dom Pérignon. Sure. Unfortunately for those of you hoping to burn a hole in your bank account, this beauty isn’t for sale. But fear not, you can still grab a hand-crafted doughnut with 24-carat gold leaf, butterflies and a few of those edible diamonds for a meagre £39.95 each at Selfridges. Or, for around the same price, you can get 40 original glazed Krispy Kremes and be the most popular person in the office. Just saying. Laura Sagar

Eggs are not the only way to roll with it this Easter. Tania Ballantine serves up London’s craziest chocolate-based treats.

Pizza
Some pizza toppings are just wrong (chicken tikka should never be allowed outside a curry), and some are so wrong they’re actually right. In that camp, you’ll find the chocolate ‘dessert’ pizza from the Real Man Pizza Company – seven inches of choc-on-dough glory. Ask nicely and you can fruitify your so-called ‘Manx’ pizza with banana or berries (£7.95). And then treat your trip to the dentist as a badge of honour. 91-95 Clerkenwell Rd, EC1R 5BX. Farringdon tube.

Pasta
If we can turn old loaves into dessert – as bread and butter pudding – then why not have pasta for pud? More specifically, chocolate penne from Hotel Chocolat (£5.50). Made with unsweetened cocoa (so in theory you can use it for savoury dishes too, though that kind of defeats the point), it’s best served slathered in melted chocolate sauce and nuts. Or a bit of custard. or some ice cream. Or, or… Branches including 25 Old Compton St, W1D 5JN. Leicester Square tube

Cheese
The recent union between Philadelphia cream cheese and Cadbury’s chocolate may not have been that convincing (despite Jennifer Saunders’s best advertising efforts), but there’s something to be said for this unlikely mix. Drop into chocolate shop Paul A Young to try a box of its new (and insane-sounding) goat’s cheese, limoncello and black pepper truffles (£7). Made with 70 percent Peruvian chocolate, they’ve got a citrus kick and a distinctive creamy aftertaste. Branches including 143 Wardour St, W1F 8WA. Oxford Circus tube.

Beer
Proof that chocolate really does go with everything (or perhaps that beer goes with everything) is a delicious choco porter concocted by the clever bunch at Greenwich’s Meantime Brewing Co (£4.80). They use roasted malts to brew an intense, rich beer, then mix in chocolate to bring out the warm, mocha flavours. A better nightcap than a mug of cocoa, that’s for sure. Old Brewery, Pepys Building, OldRoyal Naval College, SE10 9LW. Cutty Sark DLR.

CocktailThe latest concoction from trendy Soho cocktail bar Coal Vaults is designed to be paired with a dish of king scallops, white asparagus and truffle. But forget that for now. The joy is in the cocktail itself. Named ‘White Velour’, presumably because it’s silky, not because it’ll remind you of a ’90s jumpsuit, it features white chocolate, orange blossom and prosecco (£7.50). Who needs food? 187b Wardour St, W1F 8ZB. Oxford Circus tube.

Selfies
Selfies might be so 2013, but that doesn’t mean that Harvey Nichols is choco-late to the party – it’s taking self-shots to a whole new level. The high-end department store has installed a state-of-the art 3D printer which will scan your face in order to create eerily edible figurines out of chocolate (£99 for six). Worth paying for, if you think you’re good enough to eat.109-125 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7RJ. Knightsbridge tube.

Always wanted to eat a tiny version of yourself made out of chocolate? Us neither. Surely that’s just confectionery cannibalism! But when we were invited to Harvey Nichols to try out iMakr and Rococo’s new chocolate 3D modelling in honour of Richard Ayoade’s new film ‘The Double’, we weren’t about to say no.

First up, let me just say that 3D printing is a pretty amazing invention and Clerkenwell-based 3D specialists iMakr are leading the way by creating impressive/terrifying ‘Mini You‘ bust or full body models in sandstone. Now they’ve teamed up with chocolatiers Rococo for a pop-up in Harvey Nichols fifth floor food court where they’re making their fab little 3D models – but this time out of chocolate. Want an Easter sweet treat with a difference? Surely this is it.

But how does it work? Once you’ve chosen what you want (full body/bust/chocolate/sandstone/size etc.) you’re ready for your close-up. All you need to do is stand in the booth, look fresh, pick your pose and be simultaneously papped in-the-round by 48 cameras. Click. Easy.

I don’t recommend going when you feel hungover and scruffy. Learn from my mistakes.

Not entirely happy with your shot? You can keep trying until you get something you like. This was the best I could manage.

After that, those clever computers create a 3D version pieced together out of all the photos. This was mine. UH-OH! Do I really look like that?! I sincerely hope not. Even with a hangover, this was a little errr… harsh.

This was then used to create a custom-built mould for the chocolate to be poured into.

And as if by magic – TA-DA – here we have it! I opted for the three-inch solid milk chocolate bust and sandstone versions and one week later they arrived (sadly you don’t get them there and then but they do have to be hand crafted!)

I’m not going to lie, it feels wrong to eat the mini chocolate me, so I think this will be my mum’s marvellous Easter gift. Whether or not she’ll be able to eat it is another matter – although hopefully she’ll appreciate the sweet gesture. Meanwhile I’ll just have to work out if it’s too vain/creepy to keep the other version on my desk…

If you want your very own double, it’s only at Harvey Nichols until April 22 so get down there ASAP if you want a chocolate mini you or head to imakr.com to find out more. Sonya Barber

Want to celebrate Easter with an egg hunt? Of course you do. Here are five great chocolatey trails happening this weekend. Ready, steady, hunt!

Paul A Young’s London Trivia Trail
Sweet-toothed shoppers are in for a treat this weekend as Paul A Young has devised a London trivia trail from his concession at Heal’s to his flagship shop on Wardour Street. Pick up a question sheet in store and answer all the clues correctly to win a hot cross bun truffle. Extra brownie points and a hamper of goodies will be awarded to the lucky competitor who comes closest to guessing the number of eggs Paul will make this Easter.April 19-20, 10am-7pm, Paul A Young Fine Chocolates, 143 Wardour Street, Paul A Young at Heal’s, The Heal’s Building, 196 Tottenham Court Road

Baileys Feaster Egg Hunt
By far the most indulgent hunt this year comes from Baileys, who will be heading to Harvey Nichols for a theatrical adventure through time and chocolate in search of the ultimate Baileys Luxe Easter Egg. The experience will culminate with a six-course feast created by the Chiappa Sisters and served on the Fifth Floor Terrace. Beware of cocoa-induced food comas.Sat April 19. Tickets are £25 and include theatre experience, six-course feast and Baileys Chocolate Luxe Easter Egg. Book via baileysfeasteregghunt@hellounity.com or 08454 639558. Find out more at harveynichols.com/baileys-feaster-egg-hunt

Cutty Sark treasure trail
Designed for kids and adults alike, the Cutty Sark egg hunt will take you on a quest for chocolatey treasure and the chance to win a family ticket to Camp Bestival. Simply spot where the Cutty Sark chickens have been laying their eggs to be in with a chance. Cracking!April 18-21, 10am-5pm, free with admission to Cutty Sark

Egg hunt in Orbit
Possibly the loftiest Easter egg hunt in London will be taking place at the ArcelorMittal Orbit this weekend in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Eight eggs will be hidden in and around the sculpture for kids to seek out. A chocolate egg prize will be available for the first 250 kids to complete it each day, so arrive early to avoid tantrums.April 18-21, 10am-6pm. Tickets available by telephone: 0333 800 8099 or at arcelormittalorbit.com

Artsy egg hunt at the Fashion and Textiles Museum
Budding fashion followers are invited to search out Easter-themed designs from the likes of Picasso and Miro to win chocolate treats on Sunday. As the Artist’s Textiles: Picasso to Warhol exhibition is a must see, it’s the perfect combination of chocolate and art. We call it Chocol-art…Sun April 20, free with gallery admission